Skip to content
ES, Español

Counting and learning

Cinco patitos

The Spanish “Five Little Ducks”: a song for counting backwards on your fingers. Five little ducks go swimming over the hill, one fewer comes back on every «cuac, cuac, cuac» (“quack, quack, quack”), and at the end mother duck goes looking and all five come home. With a new story by the lake.

Lyrics in Spanish with English translation

The English meaning is under each line.

Cinco amigos junto al lagoFive friends by the lakeven los patos al pasar.see the ducks go by.Una pata y sus pequeñosA mother duck and her little oneshoy se van a pasear.are going for a walk today.

Cinco patitos fueron a nadar,Five little ducks went out to swim,por la colina y más allá.over the hill and far away.Mamá pata dijo: cuac, cuac, cuac,Mother duck said: quack, quack, quack,y solo cuatro volvieron acá.and only four came back here.

Cuatro patitos fueron a nadar,Four little ducks went out to swim,por la colina y más allá.over the hill and far away.Mamá pata dijo: cuac, cuac, cuac,Mother duck said: quack, quack, quack,y solo tres volvieron acá.and only three came back here.

Tres patitos fueron a nadar,Three little ducks went out to swim,por la colina y más allá.over the hill and far away.Mamá pata dijo: cuac, cuac, cuac,Mother duck said: quack, quack, quack,y solo dos volvieron acá.and only two came back here.

Dos patitos fueron a nadar,Two little ducks went out to swim,por la colina y más allá.over the hill and far away.Mamá pata dijo: cuac, cuac, cuac,Mother duck said: quack, quack, quack,y solo uno volvió acá.and only one came back here.

Un patito fue a nadar,One little duck went out to swim,por la colina y más allá.over the hill and far away.Mamá pata dijo: cuac, cuac, cuac,Mother duck said: quack, quack, quack,y ningún patito volvió acá.and no little duck came back here.

Mamá pata salió a buscar,Mother duck went out to look,por la colina y más allá.over the hill and far away.Mamá pata dijo: cuac, cuac, cuac,Mother duck said: quack, quack, quack,y los cinco volvieron acá.and all five came back here.

Subscribe on YouTube (opens external site)Watch on YouTube (opens external site)

Subscribing is free and optional. You never need to subscribe to download anything. The player uses YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode: it loads only when you press “Play” and never starts on its own.

How to say it

Spanish vowels are short and clear: a (ah), e (eh), i (ee), o (oh), u (oo). Capital letters mark the stressed syllable.

cinco patitos
SEEN-koh pah-TEE-tohs · five little ducks
mamá pata
mah-MAH PAH-tah · mother duck
nadar
nah-DAHR · to swim
la colina
lah koh-LEE-nah · the hill
cuac
KWAHK · quack
volvieron
bohl-BYEH-rohn · they came back

Off-screen

Sing it with actions

  1. To start, hold up one hand with all five fingers: they are the five little ducks.
  2. On «fueron a nadar» (“went out to swim”), move your hand as if it were swimming; on «por la colina y más allá» (“over the hill and far away”), move it up and down like a hill.
  3. On «cuac, cuac, cuac» (“quack, quack, quack”), open and close your other hand like mother duck’s beak.
  4. On every «volvieron acá» (“came back here”), fold one finger down and count how many are left: four, three, two, one… none!
  5. On «mamá pata salió a buscar» (“mother duck went out to look”), the beak hand goes looking for the ducklings and, on «los cinco volvieron acá» (“all five came back here”), all five fingers pop up again!
Singing together:
Before every «volvieron acá» (“came back here”), pause and ask «¿cuántos quedan?» (“how many are left?”) so your child can count the fingers and say the number.
Good for practicing:
Counting backwards from 5 to 0 on the fingers, copying the «cuac» (“quack”) and moving the hands to the beat of the song.
Other versions:
It’s the Spanish version of “Five Little Ducks”, sung in English with the same actions.

More ideas for singing with your child

All the lyrics in the songbookLesson plan for the classroomMore songs with actions

Where it comes from

«Cinco patitos» is the Spanish version of “Five Little Ducks”, an English finger-counting rhyme by an unknown author. The oldest version we could check is from 1969, in a teachers’ handbook from Oklahoma (United States), with the ducks swimming “over the water”; by 1971 it was printed in Australia with the words sung in English today, “over the hills and far away”. In Spanish, the earliest dated text we found is from 2003: a bilingual manual from the Texas State Library lists it as traditional, with the ducklings swimming «sobre el lago» (“over the lake”). Our version sings «por la colina y más allá» (“over the hill and far away”) and adds a new verse at the start, about the five friends by the lake.

Sources: